A common nuisance to parents of young children is that children seem to have a special attraction for telephones and enjoy removing the receiver from the cradle and fingering the dial. Such play can prevent incoming calls from being received, can lead to the disruption of calls in progress if the child plays with an extension phone, or can result in the child inadvertently completing a call which could be costly.
The prior art discloses that several attempts have been made to deal with this problem. Some of these devices require a lock and key and thus are expensive. Others are rather complex and are expensive to construct. Others do not automatically engage themselves at the conclusion of a call. If the telephone user fails to re-engage the device, the function of the device is defeated. Furthermore, the functioning of most of the devices disclosed in the prior art is dependent upon the physical dimensions of certain features of the telephone being within a close tolerance of the dimensions of the device. An examination of the so-called "standard desk telephones" reveals that certain features are altered from model to model. Examples of dimensions which are frequently altered and which would affect the operation of telephone guards described in the prior art are the width of the cradle, the depth of the hand carrying recess and the overall height of the housing. Thus in practice, it would be very difficult to produce a single model of these prior devices for widespread use.